Preview deleted all my notes

Hi,


So I have an issue where preview on my MacBook was keeping my comments/notes but then several things happened:

1) The clickable note disappeared after a few weeks and all I could do to see the note was to open the sidebar under "notes and highlights" but even then I couldn't view the note, only the first 2 lines

2) Under notes and highlights all my notes disappeared two days ago

3) I tried starting in safe mode but the issues persisted and while I could restore a backup it seems from the forums that this issue is here to stay


I was taking notes for several large paper's and this has set me back so far. I viewed other posts and none had any solutions and simply resigned themselves to the fact Apple refused to do something about this software bug that has been present and growing worse in the last few iterations


I am now using a free version of Adobe Acrobat user DC which has all the features of Preview I used and more.


Does anyone have a solution to restore the lost notes in preview?

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 11.6

Posted on Feb 13, 2022 8:43 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Feb 13, 2022 10:48 AM

If you open one of those PDF where your notes have vanished, click ⌘i to open the Preview Inspector. In that Inspector, click the last tab and that will list all of your annotations that remain in the document. If there are no Note annotations, then there is no restoring them with Preview, and your only option may be from a Time Machine restore of that PDF.


It is always a sound idea to use only one PDF reader to apply annotations to any PDF. Not all PDF Readers write their annotations the same way, in the same location within the PDF, and by example, Skim v1.6.8 highlights are not displayed in Preview.

2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Feb 13, 2022 10:48 AM in response to dmlwins

If you open one of those PDF where your notes have vanished, click ⌘i to open the Preview Inspector. In that Inspector, click the last tab and that will list all of your annotations that remain in the document. If there are no Note annotations, then there is no restoring them with Preview, and your only option may be from a Time Machine restore of that PDF.


It is always a sound idea to use only one PDF reader to apply annotations to any PDF. Not all PDF Readers write their annotations the same way, in the same location within the PDF, and by example, Skim v1.6.8 highlights are not displayed in Preview.

Feb 13, 2022 12:21 PM in response to VikingOSX

Thanks for your suggestion to try Preview Inspector. It seems all my notes are gone and instead of restoring I think I'll accept the notes are gone and move forward with a more reliable program instead of preview.


The free Adobe seems to do everything preview can do but better. I wish I was aware of that before I started using preview

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

Preview deleted all my notes

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.